One difference I’ve noticed is between folks who want to play clearly defined roles, and those who want to create their own. Another is between role players and character players. Stats, labels, and rules tend to help one group and hinder the other.

I don't like this false dichotomy of action vs. RPG games...

There have been action RPG's for a long time.

Anyway immersion really means different things for different folks..i'm playing Dark Souls right now when i'm not playing Skyrim, and find it really engrossing, it has no plot, story..none of that, in fact it's intentionally vague, and is almost nothing but action. Certainly no dialogue led quests or anything like that. I still consider it an amazing RPG. Hey, it has lots of stats, that seems to be what some think makes an RPG;)

I'll probably get some hate for this..but I also loved Diablo and Diablo 2 years ago when they came out, i'm a big fan of anything rogue-ey in terms of RPG's, and I don't get why people don't consider this kind of thing also a role playing game, far as i'm a concerned it's a sub-genre.

I've been "RPG gaming" for 20 years or something now, and this whole anti action mentality mystifies me.

For me a good action RPG also has tactical and strategic elements that make the action interesting. This is definitely present for something like Dark Souls, it's less so with Skyrim, but it's enough beyond Oblivion that i'm willing to give them a bit of a pass, it's at least possible to create and play interesting classes with varied tactics in Skyrim.

RULE GAMERS RULE!

Role-playing game gamers?

The article specifically mentions lock-picking and talks about how it's building immersion to play the same moronic minigame over and over and over and over and over again. The article conveniently forgets that if you add random chance to the picture and weigh it with the character skill, you can have your character handle the lock without knowing in advance if it will be too difficult.

No, you don't get to play some Nintendo-like minigame, and I'm sure action gamers everywhere will cry themselves to a state of near-fatal dehydration over such a development, but it will move an action back to where it belongs, in the hands of your in-game character. It will also make lockpicking perks a lot more relevant. Only downside is that immersion-hating players don't get to do something for their character that they really shouldn't be doing.

If you can have your character swing a sword or speak out a fairly complex spell at the click of a mouse button then surely said character can also pick a freaking lock without the player's help. If anyone disagrees, imagine combat with a spellcasting-minigame, a walk-minigame, a "swing a weapon" minigame, a "talk to NPC" minigame, a "mount horse" minigame, a "ride horse" minigame, and quite possibly a "wipe your butt" minigame. Would that be fun? Would that be the least bit awesome? No? EXACTLY! Minigames are almost always terrible and they almost inevitably add NOTHING of value to a game, least of all immersion.

Suppose I was terrible at the lockpicking minigame. I'm not, in fact I'm pretty decent after having played the same damn minigame loads in FO3 and FONV, but suppose I svcked badly. Suppose that even with all the perks, I still have a damned hard time. With all the perks, the character is really a [censored] ace locksmith but because I'm a terrible at the lockpicking minigame, the ace locksmith still can't open locks that should be easy as pie. How is that in any damn way immersive? Anyone care to explain that? Please?

Using player skill for character skill is something that should be done very carefully in RPGs. Characters may be chosen by some divine entity or gifted in other ways but players are not. Conversely, players may be hugely gifted in various abstract representations of activities in which the character is not gifted. This leads to stupid situations that make no sense whatsoever.

In Gothic 2, because combat was mostly based on player skill, a level 1 character that would get eaten by your average wolf could easily kill a black troll by running circles around it and constantly slashing it for -5 hp. Took loads of time, obviously, but the troll would eventually die without having hit the player once. Add in basic "% to hit" mechanics (i.e., add some rule based gameplay) and things would be much different.

In the same game, lockpicking was also player-controlled. Effectively, all locks were combination locks with the key being the proper combination of left and right twists. Thus you could find out the combination through trial and error, write it down, load a save prior to the trial and error session, do the proper combination, and presto, even the most complex of locks would open with no broken lockpicks.

How about FO3 hacking? It was a minigame too, and once of the most lame I've seen. It was slow, annoying, and added nothing to the game. And in very short order, someone uploaded a hacking spreadsheet that you could type your options into, and use to track possible options based on what was known. Result was guaranteed success in any hack I was allowed to attempt. Where's the immersion in that? Sure, I "cheated" but what difference would it do if I'd done what the spreadsheet did manually? Would I be more immersed in the 57th hack I made with a character, if I spent another 5 minutes doing it? Really?

Now compare this with Morrowind's lockpicking. Your character would do it for you, it took half a second, and your character would then instantly learn if he had no chance whatsoever of opening it. On the other hand, if the character had a 1% chance of opening, you might be standing at the lock for a rather long period of time. Lets look at how it was done in NWN (that's Neverwinter Nights for you casuals, action gamers, and kids with no memory before Oblivion) where your character would spend some time kneeling and trying to open the lock, with the result determined by the simple mechanic of whether skill level + die roll was equal to or higher than the lock level.

Why were either of those rule-based mechanics not good enough? What was gained by forcing rogue types (or rather, since the Open spell was removed, all characters that want to open locks) to play the same minigame for 5 year olds possibly hundreds of times?

Why is it more immersive if you do the lockpick for your character, when you do almost NOTHING else for your character in Skyrim? You don't piss for your character, you don't [censored] for your character, you don't eat, you don't sleep, you don't jerk off, you don't polish your armor, you don't clean your sword, you don't even equip the armor or the sword, you don't perform the actual repairs needed, you don't brew the potions, you don't drink the potions, you don't put bandages around wounds, you don't cast the actual spells...

Really, the whole damn concept is to tell your character what the character should do and then observe as the character does it. Some times the character does it instantly. Some times there is an animation, but always the character does it. That's how everything else in Skyrim and in most RPGs work. You tell the character what to do and then THE CHARACTER is responsible for doing it. Only exception in Skyrim? Lockpicking.

I wish I could say that gamesas killed that stupid speech minigame from Oblivion because it was lame as [censored] but unfortunately I'm not that naive. They killed it because they also killed everything the game would've allowed you to accomplish. There's no NPC disposition that can be raised and no extra dialogue options that raising the disposition could unlock. Consequently there was no need for the minigame. Even so, when we look back on Oblivion, how many people thought that speech minigame added any value? How many people liked it? How many were furious that it wasn't included in FO3 or Skyrim? How many people missed it?

RPG/action distinctions aside, any opportunity to take closer control over my character's actions is going to draw me deeper into the game. I play in first person as much as possible, and hate being forced into 3rd when on horseback. I had loads of fun with my archer character because it made me feel like an archer - if it had been reduced to some RPG purist's vision of archery, either something more VATS like (pause game, select target) or some sort of heavily invasive, percentage driven auto-aim, I would have been extremely dissatisfied. I think the melee would benefit from a bit more action style depth - adding in locational damage, along with the ability to control where you're swinging, would be awesome. I'd love to be able to knock someone's legs out from under them with a war hammer, or swing over their low guard and into an unprotected shoulder.

If the developers had turned lock picking into a simple dice roll I'd feel like it was a cop out. I can't say I'm entirely happy with the way it is currently but it at least makes me feel like I'm picking a lock rather than watching a character do it. I thought DXHR did a much better job of both providing an interesting minigame, and making perks count, and for the most part I think combat in Skyrim does a comparable job of making your character's success depend on a balanced combination of immersive, action style player interaction, and RPG style, stat driven character building. That's what I'm looking for in an FPSRPG hybrid.

I couldn't dissagree more, in some areas of the game they could only change the a dialogue option, not even had to add one, to allow a more immersive exprience. And I'm sure you've noticed in many games the opening part will be done to a far higher standard then the rest of the game, thats a result of limited time sure, but in oblivion the named corspe didn't vanish, no it was moved, laid up and protected, your prisoner mate is there the rest of the game and involved in a quest, but this game on the other hand sets the bar on details so low in the opening sequence they couldn't even time the dragon landing and the scout saying where he is properly for impact.

Things like that will never get patched, too much to add. But the illusion of immersion has been completely shattered for me between these things and the numberous glitches which I've been one of the unlucky many to recieve everyone going. Sure I could go back to it in a year with all the patches but after so many restarts and exploring different things it'll always be "overshadowed" by this. I'll mearly be redoing things I've done, catching up and dealing with the things that a patch could never change.

Playing in first person simply means seeing through your character's eyes. Shooting a bow in first person means seeing through his eyes and telling him to shoot an arrow after some target in real time. None of that is a violation of "some RPG purist's vision of archery". Auto-aim, on the other hand, is a violation of that vision since it takes choice away from the player. With auto-aim, I can't tell my character where to aim. Why would any RPG purist want that? Percentages should determine if my character can hit what I'm asking him to aim at, but not what I'm asking him to aim at. VATS has that same problem.

I'm not saying everything should be pause and click, pause and click, and all from a third person camera. That's just presentation, after all, and not a particularly immersive presentation at that. What I am saying is that it shouldn't be my abilities to aim with a bow, my ability to hit my mouth with a bottle, my ability to piss without stinting on my boots, or my ability to pick a lock that determines whether my character can do all those things properly. By all means, let me tell my character what to do from a first person perspective and in real time, but don't let my skills override my character's abilities.

But the sad truth is, you're not picking a lock. Your character is, because you told him to do so, but you yourself are not. I wouldn't mind a better presentation of lockpicking than what you had in Morrowind, but why do I, the player, need to pick even the simplest of locks for my character, when I don't need to do anything else for him? I don't repair weapons, he does. I don't equip stuff, he does. I don't combine ingredients and mix them into potions, he does. Yes, I tell him exactly what to repair, what to equip, and what to mix, but the actual repairing, equipping, and mixing is done by my character.

Why, then, can even the most skilled lockpicker in Skyrim not open a cheesecake lock without my help? It isn't sensible, it isn't consistent, and it doesn't make me feel more immersed into the game.

I suppose that's one major difference between us. I want a first person sandbox RPG from Skyrim, you want a shooter-hybrid.

The rules define what the roles are and what each role can or cannot do. Rules are the thing that make the game a game. The goal in a role-playing game is playing roles, and that goal is itself one of the rules of the game. The article says that for role gamers, "Roles should be defined by decisions, not by rules." That statement is ironic, because "should" implies rules. If roles are defined by decisions, then it is because the rules make them so.

Some players want character skills to be independent of player skills. If the rules make character ability dependent upon player ability, those players are disappointed. The fact of their disappointment is that they have a preference for hands-off problem resolution. They don't want problems to be too difficult because of any lack of speed or coordination on the part of the player. They don't want problems to be too easy because of the speed or coordination of the player.

The article, though good, is incorrect in "Roles vs. Rules." Even without classes, racial modifiers, and other such things, the role is still defined. It just happens to be defined in a way that some players dislike.

Youre right about the Lockpiciking, heck wich wooden door is going to stop me from just bashing it down with my Warhammer.

It's a preference I have on role-playing games. In action games, hands-on tasks are what they are, a part of the game, but in RPGs the actions of your character should depend on your character's abilities rather than the player's. What should depend on the player are the decisions. What to do when, what abilities to use, if applicable what abilities to improve, where to stand in expectation of some nasty trap, what equipment to wear at what times, and so on.

Those are decisions I want to make on behalf of my character, but I sure as heck don't want to carry those decisions out myself. I don't want to unbutton the top-most button, then the next button, then loosen a strap, then unhook a strap, and then unbutton a third button, just to change my outfit, but I don't mind aiming my bow in first person and ordering my character, through my mouse, to aim just a bit higher, just a bit higher, maybe a bit to the left, nope, back a bit to the right, there, fire!

That's me making decisions and my character carrying out my decisions. My decisions has a great deal of impact on what target my character is aiming at. Whether he hits what I'm asking him to aim at should depend (IMO, obviously) on his archery skill, archery "perks", and possibly on raw character attributes as well. I get to see through his eyes and his decisions are made by my brain, but all actions depend on my character's skills.

I hate the idea that an impossible clutz or someone with motor skill problems could never play a skilled thief because no matter how adept their character is THEY could never pick the lock. I suppose I'm in the camp of prefering all my character's abilities to be based on ingame skill ranks and not my own abilities.

Or burning it down with destruction, or using telekinesis to simply open the lock, or using an axe to cut a hole in the door, or using alchemy to mix an acid that will eat through the lock... Using force makes a lot of noise and leaves visible signs, using an acid destroys the lock quietly but takes a lot of time, and using destruction magic is about as subtle as using an axe, and using TK would "realistically" require a lot of concentration and leave the caster exposed, even if it's very quiet and leaves no marks.

And they're all perfectly viable in any role-play session with a human dungeon master. That's the level of detail RPGs should be moving towards, since computers today can easily handle it. Instead we get more streamlining and less details. We get wizards and warriors that can't use their fine lock-opening abilities and instead have to go through utterly dumb and tedious mini-games that would bore a 5 year old fairly quickly.

You appear to be making a common mistake. You are thinking that with hands-on problem resolution, player skill overrides character skill. The truth is that the hands-on action in RPGs like Skyrim, player skill is part of the definition of character skill, and so player skill is character skill. Character skill is not overridden by player skill, but is more or less defined by it. Just because "player skill" uses the word "player" instead of "character" does not mean that something other than character skill is affecting outcomes.

you give people far too much credit in that article... no one understands the importance of rules, or roles, or anything presented in a positive light by anyone they disagree with about something probably unrelated.

but forget about them, because this is a design issue. i would say that pretty much the major challenge in making an RPG is marrying the elements of rule and role together. blend everything together so that the restrictions highlight and make more important and immersive the freedom.

the problem i have with skyrim is that it is bipolar and not blended together well at all. in my opinion, it is obvious from the design of things that they are trying to just peel the rule aspect off the game slowly and carefully instead of trying to blend it in better. obviously TES games lean and favor the role side more because they have always been pretty easy and allowed you to all sorts of things that trivialize the restrictions of the game, but skyrim is far too extreme in that regard. the freedom is so broad and the restrictions so pathetic that the freedom is ultimately pointless: you can do so much so soon and so easily that it loses all meaning. you have no real incentive to better yourself or engage your brain in a practical sense because it is never necessary. you can just run around doing anything and everything and the game is still easy, your choice in development ultimately having little more than a thematic consequence to your character.

simply put, skyrim does not balance restrictions into the equation at all, it just tries to have as little of them as possible, like they are something wholly undesired.

the lockpicking minigame contributes to the role side, but completely trivializes the rule side to the point of non-existence. that is really the problem with skyrim as a whole to me: nothing is more engaging than necessity, and if there isnt any of that, i cannot get into something. all the improvements to the role aspect just seem like pointless bells and whistles when they are presented to you on a silver platter. i cant RP any story that has no conflict. that is just boring.

The first part of the article seem to fail to re-create the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_Model by leaving out the "simulation" or "world" part. Not a good start.

Exactly, choose both. Currently, the lock-pick system requires too little (actually none at all) of the characters skills.

I suspect the author hasn't really touched many RPGs. There are more comprehensive definitions derived many years ago. I for one is not the "most people" mentioned in that article.

I have my own life and it's fine, I don't want to be an elven mage who cast fireballs at random feline just for the fun of it.

Great article, I think the author nailed the problem which comes down to two different philosophy on RPG's, Role vs Rule. I myself am a bit of a hybrid between the two but would lead towards Role if picked between the two.

This is my opinion but I believe that RPG's are governed by systems and how those systems are used is up to the DM or Dungeon Master. However all of those systems need to have similar attributes which allow them to be qualified as an RPG. Those attributes are Character Progression/Development or level up, Choice(Which could be definied under many different ways), The ability to RP or Roleplay, and some form of a statstics system that identifies with the character (Which that stat system could be definied in a manner of different ways).

It's some of the reasons why I call Skyrim an RPG yet I don't call Mass Effect 2 an RPG, I call it a 3PS with terrible RPG elements if any. Mass Effect 2 has progression but not much of it, it has choice but not much, The ability to Roleplay I would argue no because you do a bunch of stuff out of character, you could make the same argument about Skyrim but you still have choice to go down any route, not so with ME2 and lastly Statistics is there for ME2 but they don't mean much.

RPG Elements:
Any element where the Character's SPAK (Skills, Power, Abilities, and Knowledge) determine the outcome of the player's choices.

Action Elements:
Any element where the Player's SPAK determines the outcome of the player's choices.


RPGs are not about playing dress up, and they are not about proving your acting skills. They are about creating a character and giving him direction and watching him develop. You (the player) are not the character, you are the director/mentor who is guiding the character into the role you chose and your choices for him lead to his success or failure based on his ability.

It's important to note that most people don't really care whether a game is a true RPG or not. Arguments over semantics are useless. When someone says, "This game is not an RPG," they mean it's not up to their expectations of what a TES game out to be. Obviously, you aren't likely to see narrative criticisms of an RPG series that has never been anything more than a dungeon crawler. But TES games, historically, have had certain common traits and have generally aimed for a certain type of experience. With that experience in mind, there is plenty of room for commentary concerning how well it may or may not have accomplished those goals.
I pretty much agree with this. I click, my character swings his sword. I click, my character picks a lock. Why purpose does another layer serve aside from compromising the distinction between character types?

The way it is currently though, your ability with a bow does have a considerable impact on your character's success. Perks and character skill level make it easier, but you still have to have the timing and coordination to line up a shot in real time, just as you would in a pure FPS. To absolutely remove player skill from the equation would require something like VATS or autoaim, which even you agree would be a big step down. Where lockpicking fails in my opinion is that the character development side of it is completely unnecessary.

Ever since I joined back in December (my other account was made in December, made this one instead later), I've loved this community so I will be around as long as I can

Elements that can be determined by a ruleset:
Physical capabilities

Elements that cannot be determined by a ruleset:
Mental capabilities

At best, your character is never more than half-determined by rules.

This is a very clear, concise definition of the rule-oriented half of the RPG equation. Statements like "rpgs are not about playing dress up" and "rpgs are not about proving your acting skills" are statements of preference, not statements of fact. When LARPs became popular way back when, most of the people that I knew in RPG circles considered LARPers too hard-core. Those people were taking their RP way too seriously. The fact that you don't happen to like those elements doesn't exclude them from the discussion. Let me add balance to your statement by providing an alternate definition:

RPGs are not about adhering slavishly to a set of rules, and they are not about proving your ability to read tables of data. They are about creating a character and giving him direction and watching him develop. You (the player) are not the character, you are the actor who experiences the character's world through the eyes and ears of the character, and your choices for him lead him to his success or failure based on your ability to make informed decisions.

Stick the two one-sided arguments together and you have something resembling a RPG.

Actually they can. You try playing Planescape: Torment with a low intelligence character.